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Superb Mid-Range Phone with Great Battery Life

Superb Mid-Range Phone with Great Battery Life

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Posted 10 months ago.

====== Summary ======
The Sony Xperia XA2 is an excellent mid-range Android smartphone with a great design, powerful performance, a good camera, a sharp and vibrant screen, and phenomenal battery life. It strikes a great balance between comfortable screen size (5.2"), weight, and easy one-handed use. And Sony's Android Oreo 8.0 OS is smooth, fast, and easy to use. Sony has created an excellent and wonderful product.
*Pros:
-Blocky but premium-looking design with clean lines. Color is beautiful.
-Great performance.
-Sony's Android Oreo 8.0 is fast and buttery smooth.
-Camera takes great pictures.
-Can do 4K@30FPS, 1080P@60FPS & 30FPS, and 720P 120FPS Slow-Motion video.
-Speaker is loud and clear.
-Screen is bright, vibrant, and color-accurate.
-Battery life is phenomenally good.
-Fingerprint sensor works fast and reliably.
-Has a headphone jack~!!
-Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0.
*Neutral
-No wireless charging.
-No water resistance.
*Cons:
-Hard to find good glass screen protectors.
-Limited choices when searching for cases & other accessories.
==== Design ====
I'm usually not a fan of blocky-looking phone designs, sharp corners, and big bezels. I often prefer the design language of phones from the likes of Samsung and Apple with their rounded corners and smooth sides. The Sony Xperia XA2, however, has won me over due to its premium look, excellent build quality & fit-and-finish, and the elegant-looking shade of blue that is very pleasing to me.
Despite having used slim-bezel phones in the past and in the present such as the Galaxy S8+ and the Galaxy S9+, I like the XA2's overall design with its symmetrical top & bottom bezels, clean lines, sturdy metal sides, dense & high-quality plastic back, and the flush rear camera module.
I also like that the back of the phone is mostly flat and not curved out like the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact, which I also own. It gives the XA2 a slimmer profile and a more sleek look. Being made of plastic with a nice coating on top, it doesn’t show fingerprint smudges like on phones with a glass backcover.
With a screen size of 5.2", width of 70mm (2.8"), and a weight of 6 oz, using the phone has been an ergonomic joy. It's light, comfortable to hold, and easy to manage with just one hand.
The fingerprint sensor is easy to find and reach as it is underneath the camera module a good distance away. It is also fast to unlock and reliable in operation.
I really appreciate the dedicated camera button on the lower right side of the phone that can quickly launch the camera app even when the screen is off and which also acts as a physical camera shutter button. I’m VERY happy that Sony continues to include a separate button for the camera. It is definitely more useful than the Bixby button found on recent Samsung devices.
The rest of the hardware is excellent as well - the round & clickity power button, volume buttons, and the side flap one can easily open with just your fingernail to expose the SIM card and microSD card trays. I LOVE not having to use a SIM ejector tool.
Compared to more expensive midrange and flagship phones, the XA2 is missing water resistance and wireless charging. I do not mind such exclusions, however, as they are just nice extras and not critically important features for me.
Overall, considering the price range the XA2 falls into, I give the XA2 a 10 out of 10 for phone design and build quality. Great job, Sony~!!
==== Display ====
I really like the XA2's 16:9 Full HD screen with its 424 ppi display density. The display is very crispy & bright and watching stuff under direct sunlight here in sunny California is no problem. The only thing I didn't like initially was Sony's default "Color Gamut and Contrast Setting" which was set to "Off." That made pictures and videos to appear a bit dull and too cool. Changing it to the "Standard mode" setting, fortunately, corrected everything. Immediately, the colors began to pop more and become more vibrant. I left all other display settings at their default such as "Adaptive Brightness" and "White balance."
Comparing directly to my Galaxy S9+ and its Super AMOLED panel, I expected the XA2 with its IPS LCD display to fall short by a noticeable margin. That wasn’t the case at all thanks to Sony’s well-calibrated IPS display. The whites are bright & white and the blacks are dark & inky. Even as I switch back-and-forth between the Galaxy S9+ and the XA2, the only noticeable difference was the screen size & the screen aspect ratio (16:9 vs 18.5:9). Both phones' displays look fantastic and the XA2 doesn't lose any ground in this department in my opinion.
==== Audio ====
Despite having only one downward-firing speaker on the bottom, the sound quality and fidelity of the XA2 surprised me in a good way. The volume, even at its maximum, has no distortions and media content sound loud and clear. Listening to music and watching YouTube videos was a pleasure.
Inside "Audio settings," I left the audio settings at default with "ClearAudio+" and "Dynamic normalizer" toggled to On. Should you want to fine-tune your audio experience, you can do so by un-Toggling the ClearAudio+ option, tapping into "Sound effects," and adjusting the values inside the "Equalizer" screen. Sony offers 8 pre-fined EQ settings, one Custom setting, and two User-defined settings. Bass level can also be set between -10 to +10.
Although I'm a fan and frequent user of wire-free Bluetooth audio headphones and earphones, I still appreciated Sony including a 3.5-mm audio jack on the top of the phone. Having more options, I believe, is always a good thing.
==== Performance ====
With the excellent and well-balanced Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 midrange SOC, 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage, the Xperia XA2 is a very competent performer. Everything is just so fast, snappy, and smooth - opening and launching apps, playing games, watching high-resolution videos, taking pictures, moving files around, and more. I give major props to Sony for implementing Android Oreo 8.0 with a light and performant UI skin that doesn't boggle down the phone.
==== Camera ====
The 23 MP Exmor RS camera is another strong point of the XA2. It takes very crisp, detailed, and color-accurate photos the majority of the time and Sony's "Superior auto" mode works very well and consistently. Navigating between the camera modes and the Selfie mode was intuitive and simple.
Shutter speed & auto-focus are fast, dynamic range is very good, and the photo quality is consistent. And I really love the dedicated hardware camera shutter button.
The only time the camera feels a little bit lacking is during very low-light photography, which is to be expected, not just from the Sony XA2 but from all mid-range phones. Compared to much more expensive flagship phones, the XA2's very low-light photos are blurrier, noisier, darker, and contain less true-to-life colors. With that said, the XA2 still managed to always capture useful photos and I didn't have to discard pictures most of the time.
Recording videos is another strong positive of the XA2. In addition to 4K@30FPS recording, it can also do Full HD 60 FPS with no HDR and Full HD 30 FPS with HDR. Another nifty feature I didn't expect to find in the XA2 is the ability to do 720P 120 FPS Slow Motion videos. It worked well and was fun to play around with.
For Selfie lovers, the XA2 got your back as well with its 8MP front camera that can capture selfies in up to 120 degrees. I’m not into Selfies but the pictures I did take came out sharp and satisfactory. Low-light selfies came out nicely as well which was a pleasant surprise.
All in all, I really like the camera of this phone and I trust it to take consistently good photos and videos.
==== Software ====
The XA2 came installed with Android Ore 8.0 and it is a performer. The phone is consistently smooth, snappy, and fast. I experienced no weird janks, stutters, or hiccups.
I hope Sony continues to maintain their software reputation and provide timely OS and security updates for the Xperia XA2.
==== Battery Life ====
OMG, the battery life is SOOOOO good~!! Even after 3 & ½ hours of YouTube, the battery level was at 65% charge. My Samsung Galaxy S9+ cannot do that and the only other phone that I own that can match the XA2 is my Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact.
Refreshingly, the XA2 has nicely-sized 3300mah battery inside that charges very quickly thanks to Qualcomm's QuickCharge 3.0 technology.
Sony did an EXCELLENT, FANTASTIC job at controlling Android and optimizing for great battery life and endurance. Bravo, Sony~!
==== Misc Stuff ====
Other functions worked very well such as quick & accurate GPS positioning, great call & mobile data reception, and loud & clear voice calls. The fingerprint sensor responds quickly and works well consistently.
==== My Verdict ====
Not only is this phone good, it's excellent. It has so many strengths - easy one-handed use, excellent ergonomics, quality camera, great display, great speaker, lean software, and superb battery life. It’s a Complete Win and excellent phone from Sony.

Beautiful and solid phone.

Beautiful and solid phone.

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Posted 1 year ago.

Bought the pink variant for my wife, which looks like a toned down rose gold. It feels premium even better than the iphone and s9. Bezels might be on the higher side compared to an S9 or any other recent phones, but is thin enough to feel sleek.
Its thicker as well prob due to big battery. Display is good with blacks similar to an amoled. Pretty quick and my wife loves it.

Sony Xperia XA2

Sony Xperia XA2

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Posted 7 months ago.

This is my phone after using sansung NOte 8.
This phone has a not of issues.
phone is not optimized for 3rd party apps.
all apps load /refresh eveytime u open.
There are a lot of bloatware. ans u cant uninstall them.
The smart lock doesnt work propery and is a known issues by the sony mobile team.
On the positive side, the build looks good.
its a USB-C,
Final word : not worth its price.
I'm looking for a replacement. But best buy will charge $35 as restocking fee.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Great megapixels phone

Great megapixels phone

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Posted 9 months ago.

Great to share videos and photos to YouTube, Facebook and more

I would recommend this to a friend

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Rated 4 out of 5 stars

Compact and competent quality.

Compact and competent quality.

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Posted 10 months ago.

Pros
-Very regular size build unlike a lot of android phones these days! Probably the most competent not chinese brand mid range phone for its price-size combination. That is if you prefer a more compact phone instead of one with more screen. Do you want to see things easier or bring it around easier. That's down to your preference.
-Powerful 3300mAh battery for its size.
-The operating system is relatively stock android overall. Sony has reskinned some buttons but I believe you can change their looks. The default backdrop has cool animation effects that react to your touch and can be changed to many colors. I'm still using it which is not what I'd expect.
-Pretty nice sharp camera in daylight. In fair lighting the rear camera takes realistic and sharp 4k photos with minimal messing around with processing. It's almost unflattering in a way ':D. Making my short scraggly short facial hair look more pointy than what I see in the mirror.!? It's sharp and doesn't do all that pretty-ing up and handle all that fancy lighting more expensive phones do. The feel of the light in the photos will look a bit more basic than those expensive phones. To be honest part of the difference might just be the better screens those other phones have instead.
-It can shoot video that uses software image stabilization that reduces the shakes. It kinda looks a bit surreal actually that it comes out as smooth as it did.
-Fairly good performance. Runs quick in basic app usage (even multiples). Not the most powerful phone for more graphically demanding games of course. But it definitely lets you do whatever you need.
-It has NFC if that matters to you. That's nearfield chip for mobile payment stuff. Lets your phone scan/be scanned at close range to pay for stuff (with one of those mobile wallets?).
Cons
-Not much of a con. It's weighty for a small lugger! (because of the battery?) It's small on the screen side but marginally thicker than average. The sides of the phone are curved which seems neat. But. Wow it is slippery. I recommend a case honestly. I found one I'm satisfied with (TUDIA)
-only 32 Gigs on board storage. Now to be honest you won't find many [western] phones that do 64 gigs for this price but letting you know apparently android 8.0 and later doesn't support apps running on SD cards. So an SD card would only be useful to hold static stuff like photos, video or documents etc. This means if you buy this phone you're gonna be stuck at that limit for apps and this phone already needs 13 gigs for android out of the box. So you gotta live with 19 gigs for apps for however long you need this phone. And when this phone gets android pi that will probably be another gig gone there.
-The number two main quirk is actually gonna be the camera. Sony's camera is touted heavily. But keep in mind this is still a kind of budget device. It runs into issues with more complicated light situations. Which is completely normal for a smartphone camera especially budget. But it just seems to me due to Sony's choice to use single lense shooters even on their flagships their phones are more prone to bright lights causing stronger glare in their photos. And bad lighting is more upsetting to me for my photos than not having the sharpest 4 thousand sharp pixels across. The Sony XA2 certainly won't take the most brilliant pictures in the night. You're not buying a flagship. If you focus on a shadow in a bright area it will make the bright areas very overblown (or vice versa focus on a light area in a dark seen). But like, I guess that's just part of how it's supposed to focus and just how it works derp. Maybe lets just use our tools properly and settle our expectations. No but actually though I think a few other phones in this price range might handle lighting slightly better.
-No wifi calling. No VoLTE. I will live. You probably will too. Sad, but probably won't matter really.
-No gyroscope. That means no doing VR with this as your screen (but were you gonna?).. and a couple very minor things. It's often omitted in more budget phones though. Competitors in this price range have this though (but again this phone isn't as physically large as them)
-Included charger isn't much of a fast charger. But honestly charging my phone in 1 hour is pretty good to me still. Back in the day you had to buy your gameboy 4 batteries to recharge it.
-Comes installed with AVG antivirus. You can only disable it and not uninstall it without rooting the device.
-You can't rename the device name of the Sony XA2 for some reason. Only the bluetooth name. Just some quirk Sony did to their phone here. Device name will always be Sony XA2
-There's no bluelight filter. Even if you unlock hidden UI or developer options. Have to use an app. Okay I'm nitpicking at this point.
-And the price. There are definitely more affordable perhaps even better value options to get by with. There are definitely nicer more expensive options. However for me as someone who wanted some quality in the middle at a holdable size this phone still strikes a good chord for me. I look forward to see how things improve in the coming years for mid range and Sony phones.
Okay I feel like I just attacked this thing. Nitpicking hard. So you know what's up. But overall I really am happy with this device for some time.
Get it in black if you want to hide the bezels.

Excellent Mid-Range phone.

Excellent Mid-Range phone.

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Posted 1 year ago.

This is a really, really good phone. I upgraded from the XA1 when this guy launched and have been very pleased. The most-notable improvements have been to battery life and screen resolution. The 1080p screen is much better than the previous generation's 720p. It also has a built in options for saturation, so you can have a bit more contrast in your colors without having an OLED screen (which, I will say I still miss from my Lumia 928). The battery life saw a pretty major improvement, as I can still go a full day plus without having to charge even after 8 months.
The phone is fast and has plenty of RAM to do everything I need it to (granted, I don't play pubg mobile). The camera is just as good as the previous generation and the added options to it help out. I will say that low-light perfromance on the front camera is lacking. The sound is a bit quieter on my device (though that just might be my model) which does bug me a bit.
I used 2 different launchers upon first using this phone. The stock sony launcher doesn't have too much different from stock android, but has support for live wallpapers natively (always a nice touch). It's also lightweight and feels good to use. I still stick with my mainstay of the Microsoft Launcher now, but the default UI is good.
Overall, my complaints for this phone (mostly the lack of an OLED display and the quieter sound) are either out of the realm of the price-point or could be a slight error in manufacturing and don't really effect the overall experience.
Feel free to leave a comment if you have any other questions about my personal experience with this phone.

Great Budget Phone at the Price

Great Budget Phone at the Price

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Posted 8 months ago.

To start, this device was intended to replace a Galaxy S7 for a moderate user, so my normal tasks are just browsing the web, watching YouTube, and minimal social media usage, as well as listening to music, so gaming and other intensive tasks are untested.
The hardware for the device, while under-powered compared to a flagship such as the S7 or worse when compared to post-2017 flagship smartphones, this device is fast when it comes to running multiple general purpose apps. However due the the relatively small ram (3 GB), you may face occasional delays when loading in previous apps.
The phone is not waterproof or dust-proof, but is otherwise durable and composed of a basic but durable plastic. I have not tested the durability of the device long-term, but since I have used this phone for two weeks there has been no scratches or long-term damage so far. There is a built in fingerprint-sensor, which is easy to set-up, quick to recognize a fingerprint and can start up the phone once completely verified.
The headphone jack has a slightly quiet output, and has a nice quality, though this seems to be the reason this device is not water-proof, so avoid water. The USB-C support is great at this price, as this reflects a much more premium and current connector and faster charge than the Micro-USB standard used by manufacturers such as Samsung in other devices at this price range, which is definitely a bonus at this price.
The software experience is nice, with minimal bloatware and removable Facebook, and some basic Sony Applications. The UI is a minimal re-skin of stock Android, with not many changes to base Android, and is quick by itself, with the use of minimal apps.
One major note, this device is unlocked to a carrier, but can support AT&T and T-Mobile, while Sprint and Verizon are not supported within the U.S.).
With me buying this phone at $199, this is an amazing value and a great budget phone with some premium qualities and quickly disapearing ports such as the headphone jack and fingerprint sensor, while at the listed $299 it is still an amazing phone that should last you a few years. However, if you want more performance or a more current phone, I would get the Sony Xperia XZ3 due to the increased performance and similar software quality.

I would recommend this to a friend

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Features

Quality

Value

Ease of Use

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Great phone! Sony rocks!

Great phone! Sony rocks!

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Posted 1 month ago.

Owned for 1 week when reviewed.

Features

Quality

Value

Ease of Use

I bought this phone to replace my beloved Windows Media Lumia Pro. I'm blown away by how sharp my pictures are with Xperia and how long the battery lasts. I can actually go at least 2 days, between charges (heavy phone use too). This phone has the best battery life I've ever had compared to all previous phones I've had. I like the size too, as it's smaller than most smart phones. Only thing that I wish they could tweak, is to make the increments smaller to change the volume level on the phone (for notifications and rings). The low isn't really low. Basically it's silent, med, med low and high. Best Buy was very fast at shipping my phone. I'm very please with my phone and their service.